Paloma's Orrery🌝

Paloma's Orrery 

Navigate here: https://sites.google.com/view/tony-quintanilla/home or search for "Paloma's Orrery" to find this Google Sites page.

An interactive astronomical visualization tool designed to model the orbits of planets, moons, spacecraft, and plots nearby stars, as well a critical Earth science systems. This orrery includes solar system plots from JPL Horizons, stellar data from Gaia, Hipparcos, Vizier and SIMBAD, scientific sources, and supports features like star neighborhood mapping and Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams.

🌛See visualizations of the solar system and space missions, and our stellar neighborhood, made with "Paloma's Orrery"

My Instagram Account: @palomas_orrery https://www.instagram.com/palomas_orrery/

This is the best place to see the project in action. I post new visualizations and animations here as I program them.

My YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/@tony_quintanilla These videos are a little old now but are a good introduction to the project.

🚀 Download the "Paloma's Orrery" application and make your own visualizations!

Welcome! You've found my project hub. Here are the best ways to explore:

1. Download and run the Windows and macOS  This is the easiest way to use Paloma's Orrery on Windows or macOS. See the subpages for details on Windows and macOS downloads and installation of the free software. 

Click this link to my Google Drive to download the Windows executable version (palomas_orrery-win_dist) of Paloma's Orrery or the Python cross-platform code (palomas_orrery). Both are freeware. You will also see archived versions. 

Click this link to my iCloud Drive to download the macOS executable version of Paloma's Orrery (freeware)

2. See My Latest Work Follow me on Instagram at @palomas_orrery. This is the best place to see my latest animations as I create them.

3. Coder? Download and use the Python Program (Source Code) Go to "Python Code" tab. That page has the complete Python code repository (the "main gate") and full instructions for running the original Python script on your own computer, which renders that same program. This is perfect if you want to inspect the code, modify it, or learn how it works (MIT license). And it is cross-platform and works in both Windows and macOS, and probably Unix/Linux (not tested).

4. Explore This Site Browse the other tabs (Solar System, Comets, etc.) to find downloadable HTML plots, animations, and my reflections on the "Our Common Home" page.

Note: The downloadable plots are large (some over 200 MB) and are best viewed on a PC, not a mobile device.

About The Project (My "Vibe Coding" Story)

You can reach me at my email tonyquintanilla@gmail.com. I would like to hear about your experience with this program.

Credits: I made these visualizations using an ever-growing Python program to create Plotly 2D and 3D plots from various astronomical databases, JPL Horizons for the solar system plots, and Simbad, Hipparcos and Gaia for the stellar plots. 

I have written the Python program with the indispensable assistance of AI. I had one course in Fortran way back in college, which provided a foundation, but I really could not have done this without the new AI assistants. They call this approach, "vibe coding". Initially around September 2024, I used the new GPT-4o by Open AI as an experiment and to my surprise it worked! From there I progressed to the newer models as they were released. When I got stuck, I would sometimes use other models like Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek. More recently, I started using Claude 3 and now use Claude Opus 4.5 primarily for coding, especially its project system, while I still use Gemini 3 Pro for research and Google-related work and ChatGPT-5.2 for scoping or some coding. In this way, I am also learning Python bit by bit. For more information about my Python program, see "Python Code" tab. 

And now with pyinstaller I have built both a Windows and a macOS executable version of the software, so you don't need to have or use Python at all. 

Of course, while I vibe code, I accept responsibility for the final product.

Thanks! -- Tony 12-30-2025